Remember a few weeks ago when Claire McCaskill claimed that he’d already locked up a bunch of superdelegates but that they were holding off on declaring their intentions while the rest of the primaries shook out? No foolin’:

Barack Obama believes he has already secured the private support of enough super-delegates to beat Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic White House nomination, The Sunday Telegraph has learned…

A senior Democrat strategist, familiar with discussions at the highest levels of the Obama camp, has revealed that Mr Obama is now confident of the support of around 120 of the remaining 260 undeclared superdelegates…

[Another well-placed Democrat] said: “They are going to concentrate on McCain and just let the psychodrama play itself out to a dwindling audience. They know they have to be respectful of her because they will need her supporters in November.”

Supposedly they’ll start coming out of the woodwork after the last contests in Montana and South Dakota on June 3 — unless Hillary really pastes him in West Virginia this week and he needs a sudden momentum boost, which he well might. Read Jay Cost’s post about WV and Kentucky, where 30-point landslides aren’t out of the question and could give her a shot to win the overall popular vote after Puerto Rico weighs in on June 1. Would that matter? Doubtful: His pledged-delegate lead is such that he’ll end up with more than her even if Florida and Michigan are seated, which explains why the Telegraph thinks he’s going to offer that to her as an olive branch to get her to go away and play nice.

As for the vice-presidency, Carl Bernstein claims to have all sorts of insiders telling him she wants it and is prepared to fight for it, first and foremost by reminding Obama via those landslides that he can’t live without her electorally. Is that wise, though? The LA Times makes a persuasive case that the worst thing she could do to embarrass him now would be to drop out and win WV and KY anyway, leaving the party nominee to explain his getting blown out by someone who’s not even running anymore. I actually don’t think it matters, that if Obama’s even moderately sane he’d rather take his chances with losing in November with someone else on the ticket than winning and having to endure Lady Macbeth plotting against him from inside the White House for the next four years. We’ll see.

Exit question assertion: If she’s lost SNL, she’s lost America.